


The Yawning Grave

by murphs



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Angst with a Happy Ending, Hale Family Feels, M/M, Magical Stiles Stilinski, Mating Bites, Misunderstandings, Multi, Not Canon Compliant, Powerful Stiles Stilinski, Stiles Stilinski Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Temporary Character Death, The Hale Family (Teen Wolf) Lives, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Violence, Werewolf Mates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-02
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:34:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21638914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/murphs/pseuds/murphs
Summary: Stiles stood in front of the mirror in his bedroom and pointedly did not look at the left side of the bed. He did not look at the crumpled sheets only on one side and he definitely did not look at the silver band that sat on the nightstand, cold to the touch. What he was going to do is go back, and fix it. He was going to go back and save them. He was going to save them all.
Relationships: Other Relationship Tags to Be Added, Peter Hale/Stiles Stilinski
Comments: 50
Kudos: 453
Collections: Teen Wolf





	1. Sunday Morning at a Funeral

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fanfiction! Constructive criticism is encouraged. The works title is a Lord Huron song. Thank you for reading :)

Stiles stood in front of the mirror in his bedroom and pointedly did not look at the left side of the bed. He did not look at the crumpled sheets only on one side and he definitely did not look at the silver band that sat on the nightstand, cold to the touch. He adjusted his tie and straightened the suit he’s worn too many times in the past year. He walked down the hall and did not look at the shattered picture frames that still lay on the ground from the whiskey-soaked night before.

He grabbed his car keys and ignored the quiet of the house. Stiles sat in his car as the sun shined brightly on the Jeeps metal. How fucking ironic.

And Stiles drove to his last funeral.

* * *

Malia had been the first to go, the first target of the witches coven. If she hadn’t been so impulsive, if she hadn't pushed, then perhaps she would still be here but she did. Then, of course, the witches got mad, and had to get revenge to “restore order”. They got Trinity next, a brand new beta who had just learned her control. A horrific pain spell that Stiles, just learning what it truly meant to be a spark, couldn’t control, couldn’t _stop_.

The only thing the pack could do was watch as she writhed in agony half shifted and feral on the loft floor as the wolves tried to leech as much pain from her as they could without killing themselves. A lot changed after that.

Erica. Boyd. Allison. Kira. Isaac. Cora. Lydia. Derek. Scott. _His dad_.

After his dad died he was tired. So fucking tired. So tired of all the funerals, of all the death. So tired of the monster of the week. Tired of losing battles. All the pain. So tired of the loss of another pack bond, tethers snapping like worn-out rubber bands.

Of course, he turned to Peter.

In the end, it was just Peter and Deaton left but Christ help him if he was going to turn to Deaton for anything other than riddles. They fell into each other like crashing waves, bitter and angry and grieving. At first, it was nothing more than drunken sex after fights, after funerals. Then it turned into breakfast in the morning. Then it turned into dinner after their three-person pack meetings, which were less planning and more scrambling for a hold on Beacon Hills while pretending the chairs have always been empty in the room. Then it turned into matching rings, a small city hall ceremony, a burning mating bite permanent on Stiles’ shoulder.

While they weren’t healed, they found a sort of peace. So they moved into a small cottage tucked near the preserve and began talks of building a real pack. A _strong_ pack.That idea didn’t live long. 4 months after their marriage, Stiles lost Peter too.

They had been sleeping, Peter practically glued to Stiles’ back. They slept better that way, the physical contact chasing the demons that bounded through their dreams away, or at least, staved off the ensuing panic attacks when either of them awoke. The nightmares came alive that night.

They had broken past the ward Stiles had put in place the second he walked through the door when they bought the home. Apparently, they weren’t enough. Stiles swore to never make that mistake again. Peter hadn’t heard them come in, and Stiles suspected they used scent and sound removing spells. Peter hadn’t been able to do more than flash open electric blue eyes before his heart lay on the ground. At the sight, Stiles’s spark exploded out of the tight control he’d been working so hard on, and the mage who broke in with his gaggle of goons were not much more than dust on their bedroom floor.

Deaton found him the next day clinging to Peter's cold body, his hands resting on a too pale face. He doesn’t remember much of what happened the next few days, a haze of sitting on a cot in the back of the veterinarian's office. Deacon had magically cleaned the house, erasing any evidence of what had happened before he escorted Stiles back home.

Stiles stood in the kitchen, barefoot cold on the tiles. If Peter had been there he would tell Stiles to put some socks on.

If Peter were there.

Stiles's blood began to boil. He poured glass after glass of whiskey, finally taking after his father’s coping mechanisms. He caught the reflection of a photo hanging on the wall in the window above the sink. It was a photo of Peter and Stiles standing in front of the courthouse, all grins despite everything. He ran over and tore it off the wall, then started taking everything down. Every trinket, every reminder to go to the grocery store, every piece of Peter.

Eventually, he crawled upstairs, and flopped into his bed and reached his hand over to touch Peter. Except Peter was dead and gone like everyone else. Stiles laid there until his pillows were soaked through and he fell asleep. After all, he had a funeral to go to in the morning.

* * *

On his way back from the funeral he knew what he was going to do. He never told Peter, and he definitely never told Deacon because the cryptic fuck would just try and stop him. Stiles was smart, he always had a plan B. He had a plan A-Z. Stiles had landed at plan Z. He was going to go back in time.

Stiles knew the repercussions. He could fuck up the universe, he could die, he could step on a butterfly and cause World War 3. But Stiles didn’t care anymore. He wanted his husband back. He wanted his _pack_ back. Stiles could trace every bad moment back to one singular point. If he could stop the Argents from burning down the Hale home, Peter would have never gone crazy and bitten Scott. None of them would have died.

He knew that by going back in time, he was throwing away the chance to ever be close to Peter, that he would never get to experience being in a pack again but God Stiles was willing to give that up if it just meant he could see Scott flash a lopsided smile one more time or see his father try and hide a pack of sour cream and onion chips in the second drawer of his desk from Parrish.

Stiles parked his car and ran into Deaton's clinic. He knew he only had about 10 minutes before the vet came back, so he had to be quick. He grabbed all the supplies he knew he needed, already having what wasn’t at Deaton's was hidden in Stiles’ office at home. Stiles had been planning this for a long time, he’s had every step memorized for years, he was ready for this.

* * *

He slapped the ingredients down on the ground inside the carefully, oh so carefully, circle he had drawn on the floor of their living room.

He slipped a worn photo of the pack into the back pocket and reciting the incantations in an ancient language in which Lydia could have pronounced better.

Everything started to warp around Stiles, colors shifting, the world tilting on its axis. He was faintly aware of the blood leaking out of his nose and ears. God everything hurt. It felt like every fiber of his being was getting torn apart. His vision began to go white, and he was losing feeling in his legs.

He collapsed on his knees, incoherent to what he was saying anymore. As he felt the life force being dragged at him, he caught the same photo he had torn off the wall just the night before in his peripheral vision. Peter's beautiful smile, so free. He collapsed on the ground, two bloody palms pushed down onto the chalk hard enough to make the wood creak.

“ _Please_ ”

And everything went black.


	2. In The Woods Somewhere

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is my first fanfiction! Constructive criticism is encouraged. The works title is a Lord Huron song. Thank you for reading :) This chapters title is a Hozier song.

The first thing Stiles noticed was the rock digging into his back. The next thing that Stiles noticed was that he wasn’t lying on his living room floor anymore. Stiles bolted up, which apparently was the wrong thing to do, considering he threw up immediately after the fact. 

He feels like he had just gone 8 rounds in the tilt-a-whirl at the county fair. As his eyes adjusted to the sunlight, he was able to actually look around where he was. 

Holy shit.

_Holy shit_. 

He was in the preserve, right where his and Peters’ home is, or rather, was. If he was correct on his timing on the spell, he needed to get out of the preserve like  _ yesterday,  _ because this was Hale territory still and he was an unknown magic user who probably just blipped up on their radars with a big yellow neon sign that said “Come attack the squishy human here!”. 

Stiles quickly stood up and carefully avoided his vomit. He patted himself down making sure that he had everything on his person. He had left his phone and laptop behind, knowing that they would have been useless to bring, so Stiles had no way to tell the time or date so for all he knew he could have gone 60 years in the past. He silently cursed himself for not putting his watch on. The first thing he was going to do when he got to town was hunt down a newspaper or something.He figured it was probably early afternoon considering the way the sun seemed to be trying to single handedly blind him. He also cursed himself for not bringing any sunglasses. 

Thankfully the duffel bag he had thrown over his shoulder had survived the spell and landed with him. He quickly bent over and went through it, double checking everything. Stiles had thought ahead enough at least to pack a few necessities. He pulled off his now disgusting suit jacket and shirt, and pulled out a plain shirt instead, stuffing the former into his bag unceremoniously. He was going to burn his suit as soon as he could. 

He discreetly tucked the silver chain he wore around his neck beneath his shirt, holding both his and Peters wedding bands next to his heart. For a moment, just the feeling of the cold metal against his warm skin was so shocking he had to bend over and just breathe. God. Peter. Just knowing that he could run into him or his family any moment was enough to get him going again. He didn’t have time to deal with heartbreak. He straightened himself and quickly zipped the duffel bag back up. 

He checked his pockets, making sure that he had the photo of the pack was tucked securely still. It was a photo from a couple of years after they had all graduated high school, on summer vacation from college in Derek’s family cabin by the coast for the week. Derek had spent a lot of time renovating it, the rest of the pack helping out here and there when they could. 

They had all been burnt out from college, and relished the chance to soak in the sun and forget about essays and deadlines for a while. It was around that time when Stiles began to have feelings for Peter, and actually began to act on them. 

Stiles had been in college for criminology, deciding to stay in state while studying as to stay close to his father and the few of the pack who had decided to stay. Scott was back from veterinary school in Colorado, already having spent any moment he could to complain about the cold. Derek had come back to Beacon Hills and put down roots when it seemed that pretty much everyone else had left, which puzzled Stiles, but of which he also understood. Beacon hills was a different type of beast. 

Peter had spent his time travelling, texting the pack group chat with updates occasionally. He even skyped Stiles once in a while whenever Stiles had a question about magic that Deaton couldn’t (or wouldn’t) answer. Stiles wasn’t open with the pack about his spark, because he was barely beginning to understand it, and couldn’t do much more than manipulate mountain ash. Peter only knew because he had snuck up on Stiles during a research session while trying to figure out the Big Bad of the week and Stiles had electrocuted Peter in his panic. Peter was patient enough with his incessant questions and Stiles genuinely appreciated his input, despite how weird it had been at first. 

They had all spent the day running around and swimming in the lake, the pack having even convinced Peter to come in for a bit, despite the fact that he complained the whole time. After having all been properly sunburned and wrinkled from the water, they had built a bonfire on the beach. Malia helped Scott drag old wood pallets into a massive pile while Lydia critiqued them on their fire building techniques. 

Once everyone had been settled with the fire properly roaring, Stiles took the chance to glance around at everyone's’ smiling faces. Cora was trying not to growl as Lydia lightly dabbed aloe on Cora’s already peeling nose. Derek slapped Scott on the arm with his head thrown back in a laugh, while Scott's face broke out in a blush. Even Isaac had a smile on his face as he quietly chuckled at whatever Scott had said. He was going to miss this when he had to go back to school. 

Stiles had noticed that Peter wasn’t sitting around the fire and turned towards the cabin, spotting a familiar figure at the window. Stiles quietly stood up and began to walk back, snagging another beer from the cooler on his way. He wiggled his toes in the cooling sand one more time before slowly opening the sliding doors and walking into the kitchen where Peter stood, staring out the window to everyone sitting on the beach. He dusted off his pants and feet, drying not to bring the entire beach inside. Stiles grabbed a bottle opener off the counter, and popped open the other bottle and offered it to Peter. Peter looked at him, raising an eyebrow, but he took the beer nonetheless. 

“So this is what the youths are drinking these days?”. Peter took a long drink from the bottle regardless of his comment. 

Stiles placed a hand on his heart in mock hurt. “I’ll have you know I spent an extra ten dollars on this fancy crap. My taste  _ actually  _ has improved since my freshman year. Throwing up Bud Lite on a frat house lawn tends to teach you lessons rather quickly.” 

Peter rolled his eyes. “Stiles I’m absolutely positive you threw up Bud Lite on more than just one frat house lawn this semester.” 

Stiles spluttered but had no reply. He knocked Peter lightly in the arm with his elbow, and offered him a small smile. “Guess one of these days you're going to have to show me what ‘good’ beer tastes like then, zombie-wolf”.

  


* * *

  


Stiles shook the memory away and tucked the picture back into his pocket. He quickly scanned around him to make sure no evidence of the spell was left. He kicked some dirt over his vomit, not overly concerned with it. Satisfied, Stiles started walking towards town. 

Once he got close, Stiles could already see the signs of how far back he had traveled. The cars were all older, early 2000's models from what he could tell, and the most advanced piece of technology he had seen so far was a Nokia glued to a teenager's ear as she walked down the street, barely glancing at Stiles except to maybe scoff at his appearance. To be fair, dust covered slacks, dress shoes, and a random shirt that was most likely Peters judging by the way it was much too wide for him on the shoulders was not high fashion is his time, so it very much wasn’t back in whenever he is. 

At least he could that he was in Beacon Hills. Some of the buildings were ones he didn’t recognize, but he spotted Mel's Diner, and the library looked the same as it ever has. Town seemed a bit busier, but there was a distinct lack of teenagers and children so it was most likely a weekday. All the better for Stiles, he wanted to avoid any possibility of running into the Hale family before he has a chance to make his plans. 

Stiles spotted a corner store and quickly jogged across the street. The store was relatively empty from what he could tell, so he ducked in quickly, ignoring the ring of the bell as he walked in. He gave the cashier a quick nod as a hello, but wasn’t acknowledged by the old man behind the counter. 

Just old times. 

_ Literally. _

Stiles grabbed a random daily newspaper off the counter and had to take a double look. Holy shit. He actually did it. He knew he had traveled back in time, but he actually did it. 

September 17th, 2004. He made it with a year to spare before the Hale family was murdered. Judging by the information he knows about what happened, he made it to town just around the same time as Kate. He was going to be able to save them, he was actually going to be able to- 

Stiles’s pre-victory train of thought ended short when he bumped into a kid while trying to reach for the last bottle of blue gatorade. Stiles looked down to see tiny brown eyes glaring up at him 

“I was going to take that one”. The kid practically snarled at him and Stiles instinctively bared his teeth back at her. Then he realized that he probably shouldn’t be growling at preteens in gas stations. Stiles put his hands up in mock defeat. 

“Whoa there kid. You can have it.” Glancing at the clock on the wall, he also realized that it was 10:30 on a Tuesday. “Shouldn’t you be in school anyways?”.

The girl grabbed the bottle and walked to the checkout stand. She turned back towards him as she set down her things. “First of all, I’m not a kid, I'm 9. And second of all, that’s none of your business dude”. 

Stiles just watched as the young girl made her way out of the store and got into a car. He shook his head and headed to pay, because today was already weird enough. The cashier eyed him but said nothing. Stiles was happy to keep it that way. 

Stiles made his way towards the only motel in town, gas station nutrition bars demolished. He paid for a week full in cash, making small talk with the elderly woman at the desk. It was about as old and run down as any other motel across the country, but honestly he didn't care as long as his room had a bed and a functional shower. He was bone tired and just wanted to crash in bed but he smelt like he had been rolling around in trash and wanted to spare the people of Beacon Hills his scent. 

His actual scent wasn’t much of a problem due to the fact that Stiles has long perfected scent hiding spells, not to mention spells to hide his heartbeat as well. The second he woke up earlier he had activated them, the action being as simple as breathing to him now. 

Stiles locked his door and threw his bags onto the bed. Flopping himself into the chair at the desk, he pressed his fingers to his eyes, trying to rub some of the tiredness away. 

God he missed Peter. 

He missed him so much it felt like his heart was being ripped out of his chest. He missed Peter so much it felt like his grief was going to come out of his body and swallow him whole. It’s like he could close his eyes and reach his arm out, and Peters’ worn hands would take his and smile at him with that stupid sly smirk. 

But he couldn’t, because Peter was gone just like everyone else. He had to fix it, he had to keep Peter alive,  _ everyone  _ alive. 

He’s going to burn Kate Argent alive when he finds her. 

  


* * *

  


Cora jumped into Peters car, not caring about how hard she slammed the door. Peter looked over at her and raised an eyebrow. 

“You know, I would appreciate it if you didn’t break my car. I would prefer not to have to take money out of my student loans because someone can’t control her wolf yet”. 

Cora just slumped in her seat and began eating her snacks, also ignoring Peters ‘not eating in my car’ rule. 

“Why do you look so grumpy? We’re just going to take Zach to his doctor's appointment. I thought you would enjoy getting out of school?” Speaking of, Peter glanced at the backseat for the millionth time that day to check on him. He didn’t mind babysitting the pups, and he figured Cora could use the break. Zachary was the only child in the family that wasn’t a werewolf, so they all took extra care to watch out for him. Out of all the pups, Cora was taking it the hardest dealing with school. “Did you get the gatorade I asked for?”

Cora nodded and handed it over. “Some dude tried to grab it at the same time as me though. He was totally weird”. Peter looked over at Cora, waiting for her to continue, but she already had a mouthful of chips halfway down her throat. 

“Okay first of all, I didn’t say you could eat in my car. Second of all, don’t talk with your mouth full, you know your mother hates it. Third of all, what do you mean he was weird?”.

Cora flung her hands up in the air. “I don’t know! He was just weird. He was right in front of me but I literally couldn’t smell anything on him, at all. Not even sweat, and Peter, he looked disgusting. Like he’d literally been rolling in dirt. And plus! I couldn’t even hear his heartbeat, which is stupid ‘cus I’m so much better at hearing heartbeats than Addy and she’s two years older than me. I don’t know. Just weird”. 

Peter kept his eyes on the road, but his grip tightened on the wheel. No scent or heartbeat? Either he was a dead man walking or a rogue magic user had weaseled their way into Beacon Hills without alerting his sister, which was the much more likely scenario. Loathe it as he might, he’s probably going to have to tell Talia about this man when he gets home. 

“Do you remember what he looked like?”. 

She continued munching on her snacks as she turned slightly to face him. She swallowed with an audible gulp before she opened her mouth this time. “I dunno. He was dressed kind of fancy, like he just got out of church or something. Except it looked like he had been wrestling with the twins”. 

Peter hummed in acknowledgment and put the information in the back of his brain for later, refocusing on the road. Hopefully it was nothing, someone just passing through not knowing whose territory it was. He was going to keep an eye out for this man, the hair on his neck already rising to the thought of the possibility of him being a danger to Peter’s family. 


End file.
